The art of Olim Kamalov has a very specific peculiarity: it combines the features of a very old tradition and brings it to our times. He has absorbed the many century-old skills and ideas developed and perfected in Central Asian arts and crafts, including book and monumental art, mainly known in the form of murals. The earliest and the most famous of these originate from the Penjikent architectural complex.

Of special interest are his original paintings depicting various episodes of everyday life in contemporary Tajikistan, both in towns and in rural areas. His rustic scenes are particularly curious as they have all the features of the traditional and rather generic decorative illustration programme of medieval miniature painting but present a number of very truthful details of real peasant life in Tajik villages, celebrating their feasts, like weddings, New year (navruz), a paradisiacal revival of blossoming nature in spring, or thematic scenes, like kite runners, an old man talking to a young girl by a mountainous stream, a loving couple under a blossoming tree wearing contemporary Tajik national dress. Kamalov’s successful attempt to connect through his works in such ways, Persian and Indian past with Tajik present, traditional crafts and high art, is his main contribution to modern Tajik visual culture.